Our memories of the liberation war: How civilians in post war Northern Namibia remember the war.

Abstract

This research looks at the gap that exists between public representation and personal narratives of the Namibian liberation war. Having observed the absence of private narratives in the grand national memory, I address the questions of how civilians remember the war of liberation and how that shapes their lives in postcolonial Namibia. I am interested in how civilians remember and how they relate the memories and the experience of the past, how they locate themselves in public history and their perspectives on national memory and commemorations. The Namibian government has reconstructed the liberation struggle as one where all Namibians fought against colonialism, but it has excluded and suppressed the memories of ordinary citizens of the country. I conclude that national memory is one-sided as it has not included the memories of all Namibians. The civilians have fought and contributed towards the attainment of independence, but their contributions are neither acknowledged nor rewarded.